This is the part where I’m supposed to feel better. Confess and cleanse. But it just feels worse.
I lean in, voice low so only she can hear. “I’ve thought about you every goddamn day. Hoped you forgot me. Prayed you didn’t.”
She tries to pull her hands away.
Hell no.I hold on tighter. “I’m not a fairytale, okay? But I’m asking for a second chance, and this time, I won’t fuck it up.”
She pouts. “You left. For her.”
“I panicked. Besides, I left to save your life,” I growl. “Bobby was gonna use you against me. Meghan paid him off. That’s it. I stayed in Tampa, kept my head down, helped expand her empire. I’ve been... trying to forget you. I can’t.”
Her eyes soften. “I don’t believe you. You slept with these cam girls, huh?”
“Charlotte,” I say brusquely, clenching my teeth. Despite my simmering frustration, I look away as I mutter, “The last time we slept together had an effect on me.”
Keysha mutters something snarky, but I don’t care.
“Look, Charlotte, I love you, alright? That’s what matters,” I say gruffly.
She blushes beet red. “Um, and you didn’t sleep with Meghan, either?”
I shake my head.
Charlotte side-glances at Meghan, as if asking for confirmation. She says with skepticism in her tone: “You claimed Grayson hadn’t talked to you.”
Megan grumbles, “I was doing you a favor.”
“See. I didn’t.” I take a deep breath. “And... I want another chance. I’m sorry.”
Keysha scoffs. “Please, Charlotte isn’t forgiving you that easy and—”
“Okay!” Charlotte blurts and dances in place. “I knew you loved me! I wasn’t crazy!” She leaps into my arms and instantly, my heart no longer aches.
Meghan hisses, “Grayson, you will regret this! You both will.”
Keysha shoves Meghan backward, hard. “Jesus better hold my halo if you don’t shut up.”
Her eyes darken as she snarls back, “No, bitch! You’re the one that better—”
“I’ll take them home,” I interrupt casually, intercepting the two women and grabbing my phone.
Meghan panics. “No, no, no. You’re fine here! Things are good. Stay!”
But I ignore her, corralling Charlotte and Keysha toward the elevator. As the doors close, Meghan calls out, “This isn’t over!”
That is a problem, but I can’t fix it right now. I just want to be with Charlotte again.
After dropping off Keysha, the car’s interior is dark with humid Florida air fogging the windows, and the quiet hum of the coastline roads.
Charlotte’s asleep, head lolled against the center console. Her cheek nestles the leather, and her fingers twitch slightly with her dreams. I study her in the orange glow of the passing streetlights, stroke a piece of her hair back, and wonder what the fuck I ever did to deserve a second chance.
Her eyes flutter open, dazed and glassy. “Will you come inside when we get to my place?” she whispers.
I snort, soft, but dark. Like she gets a say in that. “Yeah, baby. I’ll come inside.”
She smiles, hand reaching for my thigh, clumsy but full of devotion. That dumb, pure kind of trust that makes me ache.
And then, of course, the fucking songP*RNSTARby Nessa Barrett has to come on.
